


Flashbulb

by Sarielle



Series: Monster Family [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Autistic Frisk, Established Soriel, Family, Family Bonding, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Mention of Gaster, Nightmares, Non-Verbal Frisk, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Frisk, Nonverbal Communication, Post-Pacifist Route, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-14
Updated: 2015-11-14
Packaged: 2018-05-01 12:51:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5206547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarielle/pseuds/Sarielle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Frisk has a nightmare, they don't go to wake their mother. Sans and Frisk post-pacifist route recovery fluff.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flashbulb

**Author's Note:**

> The first thing I've written for this fandom, and let me say I love neurodivergent non-verbal non-binary Frisk with my tiny non-binary neurodivergent heart. This is set about a year after leaving the underground, Sans Toriel, Papyrus and Frisk all share an apartment. I will have another post-pacifist fic on the way one my gravity falls series is out of the way.

Sans awoke in the wee hours of the morning  to someone tugging his feet. He glanced over, Tori was asleep besides him curled up with most of the covers, soft snuffles breathing out her nose.

There was another tug, this time at his radius. He looked over in that direction, a shadowed little figure made a soft strangled whimper of distress, which dissolved in to more and more panicked noises, their little hand gripping the bone of his arm. He sat up in bed.

“Kid?” he muttered into the darkness.

Frisk sobbed. A flashbulb went off behind Sans’ eye sockets.

* * *

 

A glimpse of something half-remembered. He stood on the outskirts of Snowdin town, the snow seeping into his bones, he was cold and alone. Well, almost alone, there was a noise from something lying at his feet in the snow.

It was an awful noise, a dying wounded whimper.  Pink Snow. Another gasping sob.

The smell of metal on the cool breeze and the sensation of a soft familiar red scarf tied around Sans’ throat. A memento.

The thing at his feet shook violently once more, uttering its last dying cry. A blood-soaked striped shirt, little fingers raking the snowy ground.  

 _See you next time round, kid._   He remembered thinking, poking the body with a sneaker.

He felt so hollow. A flashbulb went off behind his eyes. The world reset.

* * *

 

Here now in the present moment, Sans jolted upright, hands gripping sheets, he was safe, and he said it over and over in his head like a mantra, in the hopes he’d believe it. He was safe, he was safe. He was in his own darkened bedroom on the surface with the people he loved bedside him. Frisk was crying softly their arms wrapped around his leg bones.

Sans' pulse quickened, his rib cage constricted. Frisk was alive, as was Papyrus it was all alright.

He felt around in the darkness and tapped Frisk lightly on the shoulder.

“Do you want your Mom?" he whispered, glancing behind him where Toriel slept soundly, unawares to her crying child.

The child shook their head, and pointed at him leaning their face pressed against his knees. Their hands moving to sign something that he couldn’t quite make out in the darkness.

‘C’mon kid…” He put a bony hand on Frisk’s shoulder “let’s go into the other room, okay?”

The child let him pull them up to stand and held his hand tightly as he led them into the living room.

Sans rubbed at his face with his free and switched on the light. Frisk darted onto the sofa, they buried their face against a cushion briefly. Still trying to ground himself in the present Sans followed them, watching their movements.

Frisk was shaking and whining hands moving fast and repetitive but not quite forming any words, just frazzled movements meant to express their distress.

“Slow down now, buddy.” Sans said, crossing the room into the tiny self-contained kitchenette that was far too small to entertain his brother’s budding career as a chef.  He filled the jug in the kitchen and set it on to boil. The kid was still whimpering, like a puppy.

He turned back to Frisk, who was curling their body in to a ball, stretching the fabric of their nightshirt over their knees and flapping their hands. Tears shining on their chubby cheeks.

“What do you need, Frisk?”

With trembling hands Frisk managed to still themself long enough to get out one recognisable sign, the hand shape for the letter S and the movement for the sign for ‘joke’, his sign name. They had given it to him themself. They signed it again.

_[Sans]_

 “I’m right here, pal. Not going anywhere.”

_[Not safe]_

“You _are_ safe, silly! Look you’re here at home, you got all your books and toys and stuff.”

_[Scared]_

“I know you’re scared kid, but hold on. I’ll be right back.”

He headed down the hall into the bedroom Frisk shared with Papyrus. His brother was fast asleep a leg sticking out jauntily from under the bedclothes of his race car bed. He tip-toed across the room and took the kid's favourite stuffed bear from their pillow and pulled off the weighted blanket from Frisk’s bed. It was dark blue and patterned with yellow stars. Sans’ dragged it back into the living room.

Frisk was trembling.

It was the flower season, the one the humans called spring, and it wasn’t particularly cold that night but the child’s small fragile body was shaking like a baby bird.

They cried out when they saw him return, no signs just more distressed guttural sounds, arms opening wide for a hug.

Sans put the teddy in the child’s arms and wrapped the blanket around their shoulders. Adjusting the weight around them. He wiped a tear from Frisk’s face with a bony finger.

“I’ll be with ya in a minute, ok kiddo?”

He crossed to the kitchen, the jug had boiled, water vapour pooled around the tiny kitchen space like a fine warm mist. He grabbed himself two mugs emptied two instant hot chocolate packets into separate mugs and poured some hot water in. A flashbulb went off behind his eyes, an old, old ancient memory surfaced of a night like this one. Waking from a bad dream in a sweat with his throat raw, and the one who’d dealt with young Sans’ nightmares with a soothing voice, and a turtleneck sweater.

Long gone now. Long dead.

“Cinnamon and honey, Sans. That’s the secret.” He repeated the words out loud to himself

He sprinkled a pinch of cinnamon into his creations, and rummaged amongst all the leftover pasta in the fridge to see whereabouts Tori kept honey in there. He spooned a little bit in each mug and stirred them thoroughly, adding more hot water.

“Here we go, pal.” He said bringing both hot chocolates over and placing them on the coffee table, on coasters as to not elicit Tori’s righteous Mom-fury. Curious, Frisk’s head popped up from out of their blanket cocoon they’d been hiding in. They peered out of the hood they’d made from their weighted blanket. They popped their teddy in their lap to free up their hands.

 _[What is it?]_ They signed, nervous. Their face was puffy and tear-stained, their breathing was still a little laboured.

Sans sat down next to them on the sofa. Frisk scooted over until their head flopped into Sans’ lap.

 _[Sans. What is it?]_ They signed again.

“Cocoa. It’s super-hot right now though, let it cool.”

 _[Hot]_ they signed. Sans nodded.

Frisk repeated the sign a couple of times as if to calm themself down.

 _[Hot, Hot, Hot]_ They rocked their body gently, as Sans’ rested a protective hand on their head pushing their bangs out of their eyes. Frisk let out a soft contented hum.

“Yeah, it’s what my dad used to make Pap and I when we couldn’t sleep”

There was a pause. _[Your dad?]_

“Yup.” The child’s expression grew more and more confused.

 _[How? Boss Monster?]_ They frowned, and puffed up their cheeks, a face they often made whenever they were struggling to get their meaning out.

“It’s kinda more complicated than that, bud.”

They clenched and unclenched their fists, while they were thinking. Then with both hands they made the letter P, with both index fingertips touching they curled their hands out into the shape of spaghetti.

 _[Papyrus? Dad?]_ They asked.

“Yes, we have the same dad.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “Well, used to anyway.” He said, probably a shade too bleakly to be directing at a nine-year-old.

 _[You have bad dreams too]_ They didn’t sign this in the form of a question. It wasn’t one, it was an observation.

“Don’t worry about me, kid.” Frisk shook their head still leant against his lap.

 _[Our family doesn’t remember. We remember. We worry. We get the bad dreams.]_ Their little hands moved fast and angry, their signs gliding together through the air.

Sans didn’t know what to say to that. He rested a hand on Frisk’s shoulder.

“It would seem so…”

There was a pause whether neither of them knew what to say.

Frisk lifted their hands up again.

 _[Sans.] they_ signed.

“Yeah?” he said forcing a small smile.

_[Can we drink the cocoa now?]_

“Uh Yeah, kiddo. Sit up properly for it.”

He moved over to the coffee table and carefully leant over and brought the warm mug up for Frisk to take.

 _[Thanks.]_ They signed, before taking the mug with both hands. There was a minute of silence where Frisk’s hands were too full to talk and Sans didn’t know what to say, so he picked up his own. They both sipped at their cocoa.It wasn't the same as his Dad once made but it was still tasty. Maybe he'd ask Papyrus to replicate their father's recipe, since he had been getting rather good at this whole cooking thing recently.

When Frisk had had enough cocoa for now they passed the mug back to him and Sans placed it back on the coffee table.

“That better?”

Frisk nodded, cuddling up against him.  Staring off at the patterns the city lights made through the cracks in the living room curtains.

 _[Like Magic]_ They said, with a small smile playing on their lips.

“Yeah cocoa magic! That’s the stuff. 100% guarantee to fight off nightmares!”

 _[It’s okay, Sans.]_ Their face was serious.

“Hmm? What is kid?”

_[Papyrus doesn’t have bad dreams.]_

“Well, no. I haven’t heard him have a nightmare since we were tiny.”

_[Mom has sad dreams about Asriel, sometimes but not nightmares.]_

He thought about Tori, in the six months they’d been together he hadn’t ever noticed her having trouble sleeping. Mind you Sans went to a lot of trouble to ensure his nightmares didn't wake her, maybe she was the same, Tori was just better at hiding it.

“Yeah, I guess she doesn’t get them either.”

Frisk shrugged their shoulders _. [Then it’s okay.]_

“What d’you mean by that?” He peered down at the child's face. They were staring at the stripy pattern fabric on the couch, lip trembling. 

_[If the others are safe, I can have some bad dreams]_

Sans what constantly evaluating and re-evaluating just the level of thought he was expecting from a nine-year-old, and Frisk did not make that easy on him.

They were unpredictably human they could be making butt puns one second and make him examine his existence the next.

“You shouldn’t have to, kid. We’re safe here.”

 _[I know. Safe.]_ Frisk curled themselves back up into a ball hugging their bear. Sans wrapped his arms around them.

A flashbulb went off behind his eyes.

* * *

 

“We are Safe.” the fish woman was saying, she stood outside the Library in the centre of Snowdin town, in full armor, flanked by two lesser guards.

Around Sans’ the citizens of Snowdin huddled together in the cold, mothers hugged their children just that bit closer. There were faces missing from the crowd, people he knew. People he called his friends.

 _“_ The treacherous human has left us. The King has now passed the law that all humans who fall into the underground must be killed on sight.”

A murmur passed through the crowd, some villager’s looked relieved. Sans knew that the King himself had nothing to do the with that law, the hard work was all down to Undyne, ever since his brother… since his brother was _murdered_ for his kindness.

“Sans?” When he looked up again Undyne had approached him the crowd was dissipating, he must have zoned off.

“Hey. Undyne.” he said, his voice monotone. When would the reset come this time? he wondered idly.

His friend’s voice softened, more kind than Sans had ever heard her be before. She fumbled over her words awkwardly, neither of them knowing what to say.

“Bye, Undyne.” Sans went to leave but she laid a gauntleted hand on his arm.

“Wait Sans, Uh, I have something for you.” She said. Turning back and pulling something small and shining from a pouch on her belt. She pinned it to the soft red scarf he wore around his neck. “What’s this?” Undyne hesitated, not meeting his eyes.

“It’s the Delta Cross.” She explained, her voice wobbled and she clenched her hands tight into fists pulling herself up to attention. “It’s the medal awarded posthumously by King Asgore himself to all members of the royal guard, killed in action.” She spat the words out like she was reciting from rote.

Sans clenched his hand around the medal. He saw where this was going he didn’t have the energy to care either. “My brother wasn’t a member of the royal guard, Undyne.” He said, voice calm and devoid of feeling.

Undyne nodded. “Not while he was alive, no. But he wanted to be…this- this is all I can do for him now Sans, I was no good to him while he was alive.” The commander hung her head and Sans wanted to scream. He wanted to kick and fight and yell that he brother was dead and no hunk of metal in the world could replace him.

“Thank you.” He murmured not feeling the words anymore.

* * *

 

 _[Sans?]_ The child's hands were repeating his sign name over and over, trying to get his attention.

He was back on the sofa in the living room again.Frisk was looking at him, eyes wide and fearful.

“We’re safe kid. You’re right. It’s okay. We’re safe.” He let out a breath he didn't realise he was holding.

They both fell asleep balled up together under Frisk’s starry blanket, folded up like two halves of a whole. Yin and Yang. When Toriel awoke to morning sunlight and cold empty sheets beside her, it was there she found them on the sofa in the living room. Sans’ arms wrapped tight protectively around the child’s torso, and Frisk’s head pressed against his chest.

Next to them on the table sat two half-drunken mugs of cocoa.

Toriel smiled.


End file.
